Catherine Hennessy

Catherine Hennessy

Statement

Interested in storytelling and symbolism, my practice concerns memory and the cycle of time within nature and my place of home. Building from childhood impressions, the work looks to create allegories that contemplate nature’s enduring role as a backdrop for growth, seeking to re-connect with what the author, Henry Thoreau (1817-1862), described as youth’s intuitive curiosity and comfort in the natural world; “…in the infancy of the human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors….having an instinct for it….the natural yearning…of our most primitive ancestors…survived in us”. Fascinated by the role of perception and recollection, I engage in detailed representation, removing subjects from their place of origin so they appear to drift somewhere between presence and absence. The resulting series of watercolour and graphite drawings occupy a borderless, unspecified realm that dwells upon nature, origin and remembered place.

Images


Course: fine art

Year: 2021

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Photography: Seán Daly